Blockchain Beyond Bitcoin: Harnessing Disruptive 

Technological Potential 
Yorke Rhodes IV, Achal Srinivasan 

Spring 2018 

Contact Information 
Instructor:​​ Yorke Rhodes IV, Achal Srinivasan 
Email:​​ ​Yorke.Rhodes@rice.edu​, ​achal@rice.edu   
Office Hours:​​ Hours can be made by appointment via email at any suitable location on 
campus  

Course Description 
Bitcoin has commanded the public’s attention: despite over $300 billion invested at its peak, 
it remains widely unregulated, highly volatile, and poorly understood. Designed in the wake of 
the 2008 financial crisis, Bitcoin is a digital currency controlled by no single entity. Like the 
internet in the early 2000’s, many remain skeptical of Bitcoin’s transformative potential, 
failing to understand how and why it rethinks upon traditional financial systems.  
 
In a world where personal lives largely exist as online data, we place blind faith—in people & 
institutions we have never met—to protect data from malicious actors. Instead, Bitcoin uses 
a public, transparent record-keeping system, a blockchain, to track ownership and transfer of 
digital assets without requiring a third-party such as a bank.  
 
Blockchains will allow for trust between participants without the costs of involving “trusted” 
third-parties, allowing existing social, economic, and political systems to be redesigned in a 
truly democratic manner. Thus, this course will seek to answer: ​how will blockchains 
empower positive and radical change in our increasingly globalized and data-driven 
society? 
 
Students should be prepared for exposure to highly interdisciplinary discussions regarding 
applying new technology to rethink existing economic & social structures. No technical or 
engineering experience is required. Classes will involve discussion of supplementary 
background readings and interactive lectures. For their final assignment, students will submit 
a proposal for a novel solution utilizing blockchains in a problem space of the student’s choice. 

Course Objectives and Learning Outcomes 

 
1. Communicate the historical contexts and events which motivated the creation 
and design decisions of blockchains. 
 
2. Summarize a blockchain’s technical nature by identifying components and 
their respective purposes. 
 
3. Reflect on a blockchain’s principal role as a provider of trust and security in 
peer-to-peer systems. 
 
4. Evaluate applications of blockchains as transformative solutions to problems 
involving information asymmetries in modern economic and social structures. 

Required Texts and Materials 

No special materials are required. All reading texts and project materials will be 
distributed in class, or available online.  

Assessments 
 

Comprehension Checks and Attendance 

To ensure active participation and assess students’ ability to apply interdisciplinary 

concepts to real-world problems, students will be assessed with brief quizzes on 
material discussed in class. These “exit tickets”, collected at the end of every class, 
can be revised until satisfactory, and will be used for attendance. 

Weekly Readings and Online Discussions 

Students will be assigned supplementary reading materials related to concepts 

discussed in class. Readings will include open-ended questions which should be 
answered before the following class period via Canvas Discussions. Students are 
encouraged to collaborate with & critique posts from fellow students.  

   

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Term Project 

To assess their understanding of the principles, motivations, and capabilities of 

blockchains, students will collaborate (in groups of two) on a term project. Students 
will choose a problem space of personal interest, assess existing solutions through a 
historical lens, identify the motivations and criteria for a revised solution utilizing 
blockchains, and propose a working model of this solution. 

Grade Policies 
 

A student’s ability to pass this class involves a combination of the following factors: 

● Consistent completion of in-class comprehension checks 

● Meaningful participation in online discussions about assigned readings 
● Demonstrated effort during interactive in-class activities 

While subject to the discretion of instructors on a case-by-case basis, grades will be 
calculated according to the following formula: 

● Comprehension Checks and Attendance (40%) 

● Weekly Readings and Online Discussions (30%) 
● Term Project (30%) 

Absence Policies 
 

If a student is absent, it is their responsibility to communicate their absence to the 

instructors. If a student misses more than four (4) classes without reasonable cause, 
they will receive a failing grade in the course. 

Rice Honor Code 

In this course, all students will be held to the standards of the Rice Honor Code, a 
code that you pledged to honor when you matriculated at this institution. If you are 
unfamiliar with the details of this code and how it is administered, you should consult 
the Honor System Handbook at ​http://honor.rice.edu/honor-system-handbook/​. This 
handbook outlines the University's expectations for the integrity of your academic 
work, the procedures for resolving alleged violations of those expectations, and the 
rights and responsibilities of students and faculty members throughout the process. 

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Disability Resource Center 
If you have a documented disability or other condition that may affect academic 
performance you should: 1) make sure this documentation is on file with the Disability 
Resource Center (Allen Center, Room 111 / ​adarice@rice.edu​ / x5841) to determine 
the accommodations you need; and 2) talk with me to discuss your accommodation 
needs. 

Syllabus Change Policy 

This syllabus is a framework for the course, and is subject to change with advance 
notice. 
 

Course Schedule 
 

I: Critical Events in Modern History 

Tuesday, January 9, 2018 
 
Reading Review 

- Syllabus review 
- Course objectives 

Lecture Outcomes 

- How did the 2008 financial crisis spur development of cryptocurrencies? 

- How has hyperinflation in Venezuela motivated the adoption of 
cryptocurrencies?  
- How have credit card hacks (Target, Home Depot), data breaches (e.g. Equifax), 
and voting manipulation (Russian interference) created a ​need​ for more 
transparent and secure infrastructure? 
- How prevalent are vulnerabilities which allow unauthorized access to our 
personal data and linked accounts? 

Reading: ​The New Vulnerability: Data Security and Personal Information 

   

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Tuesday, January 16, 2018 
Reading Review:  
- Data Abuse Pyramid 
- Shifting focus from legal remedies to security practices 
Lecture Outcomes 
- What are existing approaches to digital currencies? (e.g. PayPal, HashCash) 
- Why did these approaches fail? Specifically, what is the double spending 
problem, and why is it a requirement for a digital currency to solve this 
problem?  
Reading: ​How Satoshi Nakamoto solved the Double Spending Problem​​ (Sections 
1-3) 
 

II: A Primer on Cryptocurrencies & Blockchains 

Tuesday, January 23, 2018 
Reading Review: 
- Bitcoin Whitepaper (part 1) 
- Sequence of transactions as an abstraction of bitcoin asset 
- Timestamp server as proof of chronology 
- Importance of Satoshi’s pseudonym 
Lecture Outcomes: 
- What are the primitive components of Bitcoin? 
- What is a ledger, and what does its immutability (inability to be 
changed after-the-fact) enable increased trust and transparency?  
- What is cryptography, and why is it so central to a discussion of digital 
currencies?  
- What is the incentive structure behind mining cryptocurrencies? How 
does this help the network run? 
- How are digital currencies created (“minted”)? Why do some have fixed 
supplies, whereas others don’t? 
Reading: ​How Satoshi Nakamoto solved the Double Spending Problem​​ (Sections 
4-6) 

   

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Tuesday, January 30, 2018 
Reading Review: 
- Bitcoin Whitepaper (part 2) 
- Proof of Work as computationally impractical to reverse with 
chronology 
- Incentives for miners to compute Proof-of-Work 
- Network communication and collective decision making 

Lecture Outcomes: 

- What does it mean for a network to reach consensus? 

- What is the Byzantine’s General Problem? How does Bitcoin approach 
solving this problem? 
- What are consensus algorithms? What is the consensus algorithm used 
by Bitcoin? 
- What is Ethereum? How is Ethereum different from Bitcoin and other 
cryptocurrencies? 
- What is a virtual machine? What is special about the Ethereum virtual 
machine? 
What are smart contracts, and how do they enable new applications 
beyond financial technologies?  
- How do smart contracts enable increased transparency? 
Reading: ​The Decentralized Web​​, A report by the MIT Digital Currency Initiative and 
the Center for Civic Media 
 

III: Networked Societies: Trust, Security, and Mechanism Design 

Tuesday, February 6, 2018 
Reading Review: 
- Challenges decentralized systems face 
- User and developer adoption 
- Security 
- Monetization and incentives 
- Market consolidation 
Lecture Outcomes: 
- What does it mean for a network to be ​resilient?​ How is resiliency measured? 
- While blockchains are incredibly secure, what are avenues for them to be 
attacked? 
- Specifically, what is the 51% attack? 

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 - What is decentralization? What does it mean for a network to be 
“decentralized”? How can we measure “decentralization”? 
Reading: ​The Meaning of Decentralization​​ by Vitalik Buterin 
 

Tuesday, February 13, 2018 

Decentralization: Public, Transparent, Open Source 
Reading Review: 
- Spectrums of decentralization 
- Structural 
- Logical 
- Political 
- Motivations behind decentralization 
- Fault tolerance 
- Attack resistance 
- Collusion resistance 
Lecture Outcomes 
- How has the concept of “decentralization” inspired a movement towards 
increasingly democratized & transparent design of systems across society?  
- What are examples of services that would benefit from 
decentralization?  
- When is decentralization appropriate? When is it inappropriate? 
- What does it mean for software to be “open-source”? Who benefits from 
“open-source” software? 
- Why are the majority of blockchain projects open-sourced? 
Reading: ​What is Cryptoeconomics? An Introduction for Beginners 

 
Tuesday, February 20, 2018 
Reading Review: 
- Incentive mechanisms taken from Bitcoin 
- Tokens: incentivize actors by assigning them units of a 
protocol-defined cryptocurrency 
- Privileges: incentivize actors by giving them decision-making rights 
that can be used to extract rent 
- Rewards: increase actors’ token balances or give them privileges if 
they do something good 

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 - Penalties: reduce actors’ token balances or revoke privileges for bad 
behavior 
Lecture Outcomes: 
- What are modern examples of incentive design? (e.g. feedback loops used 
across social media apps, rewards for civic participation in a democratic 
society, etc.) 
- How have societal, social, and financial incentives been designed to allow 
institutions and corporations to profit from inequities? 
- Given a network structure, how can we infer its incentive design? 
- How will decentralized applications allow us to restructure networks more 
democratically using financial incentives?  
Reading: ​The Token Handbook 
 

IV: Blockchain as a Platform: Applications of Smart Contract Systems 

Tuesday, February 27, 2018 
Reading Review: 
- Common properties of tokens 
- Types of tokens 
- Utility 
- Security 
- Transferable vs Non-transferable 
- Fungibility with respect to store of value 
Lecture Outcomes: 
- What is the concept of “tokenization”? How does this concept relate to the 
“tokens” we see on blockchain networks?  
- What are the different use cases for tokens in a network? (i.e. what are the 
different means by which financial incentives can influence behavior in a 
network?) 
- How does tokenization allow for value to flow freely in a world of 
decentralized services?  
- What forms of value can a token represent on a blockchain? (e.g. securities, 
unique physical assets, currency, etc.) 
- What is a utility token? What is a security token? 
Reading: ​Blockchain tokens and the potential democratization of entrepreneurship 
and innovation 

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Tuesday, March 6, 2018 
 
Reading Review: 

- Tokens shaping entrepreneurship and innovation 

- Fundraising 
- Investing 
- Community building 
- Open sourcing 
- Introduction to ICOs as an alternative to IPOs 

Lecture Outcomes: 

- What is an initial coin offering? How does it differ from traditional investing 
vehicles? 
- How are ICO’s an evolution of the crowdfunding paradigm made 
popular by Kickstarter, GoFundMe, etc.? 
- What is the future of the venture capital industry in a world of ICO’s? 
- Why are ICO’s under regulation from authorities like the SEC? 
- What is a decentralized, autonomous organization (DAO)?  
- How do the traditional processes of a [business, organization, 
government, etc.] translate to components of a DAO? 
- How will the creation of DAO’s change political, economic, and social 
landscapes? 
- How do DAO’s solve the ​tragedy of the commons?​  

Reading: ​The Basics of Decentralized Identity 

Tuesday, March 13, 2018 - NO CLASS 

Tuesday, March 20, 2018 

 
Reading Review: 

- Digital signatures 
- Self-sovereign identity 
- KYC/AML 

Lecture Outcomes: 

- What is the definition of identity in a decentralized and digital context? 

- How can systems be customized with permissions granted on digital 
characteristics of identity? 
- How can our identity being decentralized be dangerous? 

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 - What existing industries exist which serve as attestations to a digital identity? 
- How can our identity be extended digitally which enables unique 
business opportunities? 

Reading: ​Blockchain’s Killer DApps 

 

Tuesday, March 27, 2018 

Reading Review: 
- Dark Web 
- Digital Gold 
- Payments (Micro) 
- Tokenization 
Lecture Outcomes: 
- How can tokenization change the way modern society interacts? 
- Why are decentralized exchanges important in enabling this new asset 
class? 
- What are the proven uses cases of blockchain in practice? 
- How can these characteristics be generalized to other applications? 
- What are the paradigm-shifting implications of blockchains at scale? 
- How can we prepare ourselves for this transition? 

Tuesday, April 3, 2018 

Term Project Presentations: Day 1 (Groups 1-4) 
 

Tuesday, April 10, 2018 

Term Project Presentations: Day 2 (Groups 5-8) 
 

Tuesday, April 17, 2018 

Recap and evaluations. 

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